Apple con man pleads not guilty in face of huge evidence

Mark Raby, 17th August 2010

Paul Devine has taken the easy step in his attempt to avoid jail time and heavy fines, by pleading not guilty, but now comes the hard part: explaining how his wife was wired more than $1,000,000 from Asian companies that work with Apple.

Devine became the most famous employee at Apple over the weekend when news broke that he was charged with international fraud in his position as a global supply manager for Apple.

At issue is whether or not Devine disclosed confidential information about Apple to overseas contractors in exchange for money. The money, allegedly, was wired into his wife's bank account in small consecutive chunks of money to avoid suspicion.

His acts went undetected for about two years, until someone at his office happened to notice cached e-mails stored on his personal laptop between Devine and executives at at least three Asian companies known to do business with Apple.

Devine faces 27 hefty charges in federal court, including money laundering, wire fraud, and other monetary crimes. Apple has also filed a separate civil lawsuit against the now-former employee.

Although the overseas companies in question originally declined to provide any sort of comment, two of them have now come forward stating that they did business with Devine. Both have denied any wrongdoing. One company, Cresyn, said in a statement, "An Apple manager offered to provide us with business consulting to help us advance into the US market. So we signed a normal consulting contract, which was not illegal."

Devine remains in jail and awaits a hearing to determine if he will be granted bail.